The 7-Eleven Slurpee Peacemaker campaign encourages consumers to take a break from the heated election and chill out with a Slurpee. The company is running mobile ads to spread the word about the campaign, which are running inside the Flixster iPhone application.

“Our brand positioning is rooted in ‘come one, come all,” said Danielle Ivey, senior manager of digital marketing for 7-Eleven, Dallas.

“We wanted to unite people under the new Purple for the People Vanilla Slurpee flavor — a taste everyone can agree on,” she said. “We saw an opportunity to break through the political chatter and offer our fans a way to spread the peace.

“We have created a collection of digital assets to arm our fans to be Slurpee Peacemakers. There are fun Facebook and Twitter posts to stop the social debates and chill out with a Slurpee drink. Each of these posts come with a mobile coupon for a buy one get one free Slurpee drink to drive traffic to store.”

Mobile votes
7-Eleven has introduced a new themed slurpee flavor for the political election — Fanta purple for the people vanilla.

The copy for the ad features a photo of the drink’s logo and encourages consumers to tap to learn more about the flavor.

From there, a landing page gives users options on how to share content through Twitter or email. Users can then click to send content to friends and family with a message attached that encourages consumers to text a keyword to a short code for a coupon.

Keywords including unity, peace, purple and America are being used in conjunction with the short code 711711. Once consumers text in, they are sent a message that they can reply to in order to get the coupon and opt-in to Seven-Eleven’s SMS program.

The goal behind the campaign is to drive consumers in-store to try the new flavor. Therefore, using SMS is a great way for 7-Eleven to drive in-store traffic while also building up its database.

The offer is then sent through a link in an SMS message. The link leads to a mobile site that includes the time-sensitive offer, which is triggered by swiping a finger across the screen. The offers are then redeemable through a bar code that is scanned at the point-of-sale.

Using social media to spread the word about the coupon and SMS program helps Seven-Eleven spread the campaign to as many users as possible.

The offer can also be emailed to consumers through the landing page.

Mobile past
7-Eleven has been doing a lot in the mobile space recently.

For example, the company ran two campaigns on Pandora to promote new products and ultimately drive in-store traffic (see story).

Using location to drive in-store traffic is always a smart way for marketers to equip campaigns with an action but can be particularly effective at driving new product awareness.

In this case, 7-Eleven is able to entice consumers to come into a store by attaching a time-sensitive offer to a new product.

“Increasingly our guests are on the go and are consuming more and more information via mobile,” Ms. Ivey said.

“We want to reach our guests when they are out and about during the day and remind them to come in for a treat,” she said. “It’s important for Seven-Eleven and Slurpee to be in the spaces our guests are.”

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York